Wednesday, October 11, 2006

CBS Radio has found a buyer for its stations in Columbus, as well as Kansas City.

Wilks Broadcast Group will pick up the CBS stations in those markets for a reported $138 million.

Who?

We weren't sure, either, so we found this page outlining the history of the company...which started with a cluster of Fresno stations in 2005, and has since expanded to station groups in Reno NV and Lubbock TX.

CBS Radio owns country WHOK/95.5 "K95.5", rock WLVQ/96.3 "QFM96" and alt-rock WAZU/107.1 "The Big Wazoo" in the state capital...

6 comments:

Anonymous
said...

This could be bad news for the people in Columbus and KC.

This is actually Wilks' second go-round: the first time, they had clusters in New Orleans, Des Moines, Springfield MO and Saginaw (there may be more, I can't recall). After buying the stations, they cut all of them to the bone, getting rid of anyone who was making decent money and killing promotional activity. Most of the stations dropped like stones. Eventually, they flipped the Saginaw stations to Cumulus and the rest to Citadel (who flipped the Springfield stations to Journal).

I haven't heard much on if this latest version of Wilks is as bad as the first, but if I were working for CBS/Columbus or KC, I'd be getting my resume ready RIGHT NOW. Too damn bad.

The latest word on WVTX isssssssss, well, it’s wordless.I called, after “Tracking down” the number(304-233-1122 Yeah, they broadcast outta Bridgeport but the office is in Wheeling)and got a phone company message that said, “At the customers’ request phone service has been temporarily disconnected.”

Willks bailed NextMedia out in Reno, NV, fired most of the staff, hired a couple folks back when sales skidded to next to nothing..

The Nevada board on radio-info.com chronicals the entire, sad spectacle..

Having had a chance to listen to Rover on a daily basis recently, I would not be surprised if C-Bus is taken off the roster soon..the show has disintergrated into a daily battle between Dumb and Dieter, and who gets to fight whom when..sad really..

Here is a two fold about the former upn 28 in Wheeling. http://www.wvradio.net/index.htm/viewtopic.php?t=11899 (beware there is some very strong lanugage in the posts and is not for all audiences but is does give important insight about ch 28 and its future) It states that the station is now again a repeater of WBGN out of Pittsburgh an alson in the thead it states that a local businessman is planning on buying the station and trying to comepete with WTOV & WTRF. You could try contacting WBGN about the station since they own the station its self. http://www.wbgn.com/New%20WBGN%20Site/wbgn_contact.htm

Wilks took a cluster in Des Moines and milked it dry. A lot of people lost their jobs and they eventually sold it to Citadel. They are one of the worst companies in radio. They will keep those stations long enough to make massive cuts then sell for a profit. That has been theor m.o. time and time again.